Friday, November 11, 2005

Age in the Workplace

My boss Larry who is about my age recently announced that he is retiring in January. We have been through a lot of the same things in our 30+ years in our venerable Federal government office. We know who has had affairs with whom. We know who got fired and why. We have children of about the same age.

Larry’s successor was announced just this week and yikes! she is probably 20 years younger than I am. My initial impression is positive – I think she is going to do a great job at managing a really important project with a huge budget. But she is young enough to be my daughter! Will she think of her mother every time she meets with me?

This idea of getting older first dawned on me when many of my doctors began to be younger than I was. Then recently one of my newest employees reminded me that he wasn’t even born yet when I received an award that was on the wall of my office. (Good for a laugh, but not great for your boss’s morale).

As long as I am making a significant contribution and people aren’t snickering behind my back about that senile old fool, I am content to keep working. But when I truly begin to feel like a housemother, it may be time for retirement.